


five star review

by Emlee_J



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Getting Together, Hinata is hired to paint Kageyama's house, Home Improvement, Humor, M/M, Showers, thirst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28935105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emlee_J/pseuds/Emlee_J
Summary: "... You are covered in paint,” Kageyama adds, once he stops in front of Hinata. A tiny crease appears between his brows, and he sweeps his eyes up and down Hinata, assessing him.Hinata does his best not to shiver. The guy has nice eyes, okay? They’re a very fetching shade of blue. He should know, he works with paint for a living.“Part of the job,” he says eventually, once he manages to summon his voice.-Hinata Shouyou is a decorator hired by a new client - the unfairly hot and weirdly grumpy Kageyama Tobio - to paint his living room and fix a few cupboard doors. The job should take him two days. Somehow, it takes him an entire week.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 114
Kudos: 1072





	five star review

**Author's Note:**

> this is extremely dumb and and i had so much fun writing it - extra special thanks to seyy for letting me write this idea out!! <3 <3

Hinata hums along to the radio as his van trundles down the road, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. He’s just about to break into singing in time with the chorus when his phone – acting as a satnav – beep from its holster on the dashboard. Pausing, he glances down at it.

Ah, he’s here.

Pulling over, Hinata shuts off the engine, checks his appearance quickly in the mirror on the back of his sun visor (first impressions are very important) before throwing open his door and hopping out.

Today is the first day of a brand-new job and there’s one thing on Hinata’s mind: achieving another glowing review.

He’d started up a painting and decorating business with his younger sister around a year ago, and still being relatively new on the scene, reviews are gold dust for them. A chain of five stars on their website is a beacon for new clients after all.

Today’s job involves mostly painting – only one room – along with some odd jobs to fix around the house. Hinata convinced Natsu to add in the handyman jobs to the website when they’d started – it’s not technically his speciality, but he’s good with his hands, and the more they can offer the better.

Whistling cheerfully, he double checks his client’s address on his phone, takes a moment to marvel at how nice the house is – a neat little two-story on a quiet street – before rapping his knuckles smartly against the front door.

There’s a clunk of a lock being shunted out of the way, a soft click, and then the door swings open, revealing the owner of the house.

He’s an unexpectedly young man – appearing to be about Hinata’s age – with a bland sort of look on his face. He seems to tick almost every box for ‘classically handsome’: tall, with sleek hair and dark eyes, and an almost brooding air about him.

Hinata assumes he must live here with someone – there’s no way someone this young and hot just owns a house this nice by himself. Unless he’s rich or something. Which would only tick another box on the handsome checklist.

Hinata would find it extremely annoying, if he wasn’t so mesmerised.

“Hi!” he chirps, forcing himself to be bright and cheerful and _present_ – he’d learned early on the key to good customer service is to delightfully charming. “I’m the painter you hired for today! My name is Hinata Shouyou.”

The guy blinks at him, a tiny furrow appearing between his brows. “Painter?”

“Yes…” Hinata says slowly. He panics briefly that he really has got the wrong house – Natsu had taken this booking, so he’s never spoken to the client himself – but he squashes it down. “I’m here to paint your living room?”

“Oh.” The little furrow disappears. “I forgot that was today.”

Hinata just manages to hide his sigh of relief. “No problem! Sometimes we forget these things. Have you just moved in?”

His client seems a little taken aback by the sudden chattiness. Hinata wonders if he’s only just gotten out of bed – he does seem a little sleepy, despite the house clothes he’s changed into. Smiling politely, he bounces on his toes as he waits for a response.

“Err… yes. The house used to belong to my aunt but she passed away recently, so it’s mine now,” the man says, and Hinata privately cheers getting a full sentence out of him.

Hinata hovers on whether to offer his condolences, but his client doesn’t seem to be that upset. Maybe they were distant. It explains how he managed to own a house like this at his age at least.

“Can I come in?” Hinata asks eventually when the man offers nothing further.

“Oh,” the man mumbles again, jolting in place and standing off to the side to allow Hinata in.

Well, he’s certainly hot but he doesn’t seem to have much going on upstairs, Hinata muses as he bounces in. “Thanks! What’s your name anyway? My sister – Natsu – took your booking so I don’t think we’ve spoken?”

“No,” the man confirms, “I think I would’ve remembered.”

“Like you remembered the booking?” Hinata teases, before he can stop himself. He can’t help it – something about the man’s handsome, clueless face is just sparking mirth.

The man narrows his eyes at him. “Kageyama Tobio,” he grunts out at last, in answer to the earlier question, and he completely sidesteps the jibe, instead striding down the hall and gesturing for Hinata to follow.

Hinata commits the name to memory – Tobio, huh? Cute – and kicks the front door closed behind him before trotting after his strange new client.

“Most of the house is fine, just a little run-down,” Kageyama explains as they make their way through the house. Hinata spots a small room that looks like an office on their way past – there’s laptop switched on on a desk, and it seems like Kageyama was in the middle of something when he arrived.

“Natsu did give me a list of odd jobs – for the kitchen mostly, right?” Hinata confirms.

Kageyama nods. “Yeah. And the living room needs repainting.”

They enter the room in question as he says this – a large, expansive space at the back of the house. The furniture is sparse, as is expected of someone who has only recently just moved in, and it does indeed, look a little rundown. There’s a few small dents in the walls, and the paint is old and shabby and the colour is-

“It’s… puce,” Hinata comments, deliberately keeping his tone light.

The room is truly hideous. A deep purple colour that should only be found on fruit rather than on walls. But, everyone likes different things, so he bites his tongue, just in case Kageyama is actually somewhat found of crushed plum on the walls.

Thankfully, Kageyama just hums in response, and when Hinata sneaks a look at him he’s relieved to see he also looks faintly disgusted.

“Well, I’ll get on and start in here!” he announces, clapping his hands together. “I’ll fix up the walls and get the undercoat down and then you can pick out what colour you’d like, okay? I’ll have plenty of time to head to the store later and buy the paint!”

Kageyama grunts vaguely at Hinata’s babbling explanation. “Fine,” he says, shrugging one shoulder. He looks incredibly unbothered. Swinging his gaze around the room, he looks back at Hinata, suddenly scrutinising. “Are you going to need a ladder?” he asks, gesturing at the top of the walls near the ceiling and then at Hinata’s general… self.

Hinata bristles before he can stop himself. “ _No_ ,” he growls out, forgetting his perfect public persona in an instant. Just because he’s _short_ doesn’t mean he can’t paint walls. His paint roller extends! And there may or may not be a stool in the van if the situation is truly dire.

But then he remembers his review streak and sobers, plastering a smile back on his face in an instant. “I’ll just get started!” he sings out, not waiting for a reply before he bustles out of the room and back down the hallway.

Kageyama may be kind of grumpy and surly, especially for someone so young and unreasonably good looking, but Hinata still needs to drag a good review out of him, and so he can’t afford to lose his temper.

By the time he returns to the house after gathering his tools and materials from his van, his client as squirreled himself away in his office, tapping on his laptop. Hinata watches him for a moment, before vaguely shaking his head and continuing back down the corridor.

Within minutes he has protective sheets laid out on every square of the room – on the floor, over the furniture, and even taped to the windows.

Because the one thing Hinata prides himself in is his speed. He can paint beautifully and quickly, but speed does tend to lend itself to… mess. He learned very quickly very early on to cover absolutely everything that he isn’t painting with a sheet. Just in case.

Rubbing his palms together, Hinata looks around the room, satisfies himself everything is ready, and gets to work.

* * *

Hinata applies his last bit of filler and steps back to admire his handy work. There had been more than a few dents and knocks in the walls – all small, purely cosmetic dinks that accumulate over time, from furniture smashing into them usually. Most people don’t even notice they’re there, but Hinata would never repaint a wall that wasn’t completely smooth and unblemished.

Satisfied, he turns to grab his paint – white undercoat – before he pauses.

A pair of squinting blue eyes stare back at him from around the doorframe, before they retreat and disappear out of sight.

Hinata blinks as Kageyama’s footsteps retreat back down the hall. He’s used to clients checking in on him – people like to know they’re getting what they’re paying for – but normally they aren’t so… weird about it.

Well, whatever. At least he’s just weird and not super picky. Hinata’s still sore over the lady he had last month who made him repaint the walls seven different shades of green because each time she wasn’t happy with the colour once it dried.

So, shrugging, Hinata pops open the lid of his paint, fills up his paint tray, grabs his roller, and sets to work. He is going to have this room mostly painted by today, and then Weirdoyama will have no reason to squint around doors at him like a poorly hidden bat anymore!

In less than hour, each of the four walls of the living room has been coated in shiny white, a perfect base. Hinata blows his fringe from his eyes, slightly out of breath from his painting marathon, and surveys his work happily. This is perfect. He’s right on schedule. If he keeps this up there’s going to be another shiny review on their website for sure.

“How are- oh.”

The sudden sound of his client’s voice catches him by surprise and Hinata turns, a sunny smile already in place, ready to give Kageyama his best customer service spiel about the next step. He spots Kageyama’s surprised face and smiles even wider. Excellent. He’s shocked him with his sheer speed and skill.

“Why’s everything white?” Kageyama demands, sounding a little perplexed and a lot annoyed.

Hinata’s smile slips from his face a little bit.

“Because it’s the undercoat!” he explains, mightily restraining the urge to tack on a derisive ‘duh’ on the end. What kind of adult doesn’t know what an undercoat is? Most people hire him to paint for ease, not because they don’t know _how_ to paint.

“Undercoat…” Kageyama repeats slowly, and Hinata keeps his smile on his face through pure will at the suspicion in his voice.

“Yes. So the colour looks right when you paint it on overtop – it’s a nice blank base,” he elaborates, keeping his voice carefully chirpy.

Kageyama grunts out a “huh” and bobs his head, seemingly accepting this.

Hinata feels a little of the tension start to ease from his shoulders now they’ve finally cleared that up.

“Okay, while I have you, wait there, I’ll go and get my paint chart!” he instructs Kageyama.

Kageyama’s bemused frown returns. “Chart?”

“So you can pick the colour of your walls!” Hinata’s cheeks are aching from how much he’s forcing himself to remain smiling. God this is hard work. But he won’t let Kageyama’s ignorant grumpiness deter him from his stellar customer service – his five star review streak is on the line.

“… Oh,” Kageyama mumbles, and the little crease between his brows deepens a bit. “I thought… you did all of that,” he admits, and then his lips sort of… purse.

Hinata’s smile does drop then. Is the man pouting? He is, he’s pouting. A little frowny pout, his eyes hopelessly lost. It should _not_ be this cute.

As soon as the thought pops into his head, Hinata clears his throat awkwardly and resummons his smile. “Well I can if you want me to, but normally the client picks what colour they want their house to be!” he all but sings out. “I’ll be right back okay?” he adds, before Kageyama can interject.

Best to leave him to puzzle this one out on his own while he fetches his chart.

The dash from the living room to his van and back is swift. Hinata had learnt early on that the key to speedy success is to be prepared. As such, he always keeps his paint chart in the glove compartment of his van, ready to whip out at a moment’s notice.

“Okay!” he pants as he skids to a halt in front of Kageyama, who stares down at him with wide eyes, “pick your shade!”

He opens his chart out with a flourish. It’s made of several strips of card hung on a ring loop, separated into colours, with little blocks for each individual shade. The colour choices are quite extensive, but Hinata has had many opportunities to practice splaying out all of the strips so that each strip is visible. He is, after all, a professional.

Kageyama blinks at the vast selection, looking a little intimidated. It’s a pleasant look on him, considering all the intimidating he was trying to do earlier. Hinata tries not to preen. His paint choices have this effect on some people.

Bewildered blue eyes scan the fan of card strips for a long moment, before Kageyama stabs his index finger down on one of them, his usual frown slipping back into place.

“This one.”

Hinata also frowns down at his choice. “Beige?” he asks, disappointed. What a boring colour. He didn’t think Weirdoyama would be _boring._

“It says _‘stone’_.”

“It’s beige,” Hinata says, raising his eyebrows up at his client. “Are you sure? It’s a little… bland,” he questions, aiming to sound diplomatic.

Kageyama huffs. “You said I could pick,” he mutters, sounding almost sulky. He stabs his finger down again on the card strip, a little further down this time. “This one then.”

“’ _Eggshell_?’” Hinata’s attempt at keeping the disappointment out of his voice fails miserably.

Kageyama narrows his eyes dangerously. He stabs the chart again.

“… _‘Gentle Cream’_ ,” Hinata notes, not even bothering to mask his exasperation this time. Boringyama sure is determined. “Look, it’s a nice colour!” he says hurriedly when Kageyama starts to look like a little storm cloud is brewing over his head, “it’s just kind of old and boring and you’re young and spry right? You should have a fun colour! Not a grandpa colour.”

Kageyama’s squint sharpens into a glare, and Hinata beams back at him, hiding his steadily growing terror behind his customer winning smile. He’s won the pickiest clients around with this smile, he will not be beaten now by a mildly scary guy with an affinity for boring off white paint.

“What about a nice yellow?” Hinata suggests, speaking quickly to get his point across before any anger can spark. “It’s kind of like cream but way cheerier and it isn’t boring! Look, we’ve got all of these soft ones,” he drags a finger down the card with yellow shades to illustrate, “and your furniture is all warm colours so it’ll go really nicely and make it feel all cosy, don’t you think?”

Kageyama turns his fearsome eyes down to the card before he stabs roughly at a shade. “This one then,” he grunts, sounding more than a little fed up.

Hinata cocks his head. Perhaps a little brighter than he would’ve chosen… he meant a nice buttermilk, not bright sunflower, but at least it isn’t fucking beige. “Maybe the one below?” he says, pointing at a shade that isn’t quite as lurid, but still sunny and cheerful. His voice tapers into a squeak when Kageyama sighs loudly.

“ _You_ said pick a bright one!” Kageyama snaps.

“I didn’t mean _that_ bright!” Hinata snaps back, before he can help himself. “A _nice_ yellow, not an eye burning one! Do you really want to sit there with that on your walls every day?”

Kageyama glares down at the card strips so hard Hinata thinks they might catch on fire. “Yes,” he growls out.

Hinata boggles. The man is surely just being stubborn. There’s no way he’s choosing that shade of yellow willingly. 

“Well, whatever,” he shrugs, “they’re your corneas, not mine.”

“That’s not even the right-“

“I’ll just go and get the paint then!” Hinata cuts him off, switching back to his customer service voice with monumental effort. He still needs to live up to his promise of getting this job turned around in forty-eight hours, he can’t stand around here all day bickering. “It won’t take me long, but if you could keep an eye out for the doorbell…”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence as Kageyama lifts a finger and slopes off. Hinata raises an eyebrow, dithering in place out of sheer surprise rather than obedience.

Kageyama shuffles back after a minute, a key held between his two fingers. “Spare key,” he grunts, shoving it in Hinata’s face. “Don’t lose it,” he adds.

Hinata ignores the threat. “Trustworthy,” he comments, plucking the key from Kageyama’s fingers. “What if burgle you in the night or something?”

“I’d call the police,” Kageyama says slowly, like Hinata is extremely stupid. “Do you normally rob your clients?”

“Only the ones without a sense of humour,” Hinata mumbles under his breath, too low for Kageyama to hear. He pockets the key and turns on his heel, hurrying out to his van before his smart mouth can get the better of him.

* * *

Hinata places his newly purchased tins of paint on the living room floor (in the buttermilk shade he had suggested, because there’s no way Kageyama actually _wants_ that eyesore shade of yellow) and gets ready to pop one open, when there’s a gruff clearing of the throat somewhere above his head.

With some trepidation – maybe Kageyama really did want to go blind? – Hinata swivels his gaze upwards, eyebrow raised.

Kageyama gazes down at him, face schooled into its usual blank expression, and holds out what appears to be… a cup of tea.

“I made tea,” Kageyama grunts, gesturing with the china mug in his hands.

“So you did,” Hinata agrees, utterly baffled.

It’s fairly common for people to offer beverages and snacks while he’s working, and Hinata never turns down the offerings, it’s just he didn’t really pin Kageyama to be the type. He kind of figured he’d be in his office the whole time, tapping at his laptop and staring at Hinata with those scarily hot eyes every time he walked past.

“It’s for you,” Kageyama adds, using his _‘you’re being stupid’_ voice again.

Hinata resists the urge to drop a paint can on his toe and stands up straight, taking the tea mug that’s offered to him with the politest ‘thank-you’ that he can muster, before bringing it up to his lips for a sip. He _is_ thirsty after all – he all but dashed around the hardware store getting the paint in record time to meet his target.

He swallows.

He blinks.

The tea… is good. _Really_ good. Like the kind only his grandma serves – homely and comforting and mysteriously tasty.

“This is amazing,” he comments, and he notes vaguely how Kageyama’s expression flickers. “How is this so good?”

Kageyama’s face darkens again. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he grouses.

Hinata looks at him properly. He looks sulky again. Oops. “I didn’t peg you for the kind of guy who can brew teashop worthy drinks, that’s all,” he says mildly, keeping his tone light. It seems Kageyama is a little sensitive. “It’s really good,” he adds, hoping his sincerity comes through.

The surliness slips from Kageyama, and he looks caught between looking faintly stunned and slightly pleased. It’s the closest thing to a happy expression Hinata’s seen so far and it makes his stomach flip pleasantly. For all the glowers make him look hot in a kind of dangerous way, the way his face softens is attractive on a whole different level.

Embarrassed, Hinata takes a giant swig of tea to hide the humiliation that wants to claw its way across his face, and tries not to cough. The tea is still a little too hot to be glugging like that.

Kageyama hovers for a beat, before he gives Hinata a kind of jerky, awkward sort of nod and wanders from the room without another word.

Hinata watches him go over the rim of his mug, slightly confused by the whole experience and oddly endeared.

With the tea to invigorate him, Hinata picks up his paint roller, pops open his first can of buttermilk and gets to work.

And, with a lot of elbow grease - and a lot of sweat – first coat of paint is up on the walls by the time the end of the working day rolls around. Hinata drops his roller into his paint tray, wipes the sweat from his brow and looks around him with a long slow breath of satisfaction. It’ll need another coat of paint before the shade sits right on the walls, but it’s shaping up rather nicely.

Pleased, he covers his open tin of paint and starts to gather his materials, intending to tidy them away into a corner for the night until he gets back in the morning. As he’s clearing up, he spots Kageyama in the doorway, peering in with curious eyes. He very much hopes he doesn’t comment on how the walls aren’t as blinding as he might’ve been expecting.

“You’re finished already?” Kageyama comments, sounding disbelieving.

Hinata lets it slide. His speed has that effect on some people. “Only the first coat, but I’m nearly done! Just got to put down the second coat tomorrow and that’ll be your living room all done,” he tells Kageyama, an honest smile bursting across his face.

“You’re… fast,” Kageyama says slowly. He would almost sound impressed, if it weren’t for the persistent disbelief.

Hinata chances a wink. “Sure am!”

Kageyama wanders further into the room, peering at the walls, the disbelief slowly falling from his face until he looks sort of pleased instead, that odd sort of hidden happiness shining through again.

Hinata’s stomach does another flip.

“And… you are covered in paint,” Kageyama adds, once he stops in front of Hinata. A tiny crease appears between his brows, and he sweeps his eyes up and down Hinata, assessing him.

Hinata does his best not to shiver. The guy has nice eyes, okay? They’re a very fetching shade of blue. He should know, he works with paint for a living.

“Part of the job,” he says eventually, once he manages to summon his voice.

He holds Kageyama’s gaze as best he can, doing his utmost to remain standing, before Kageyama grunts, seemingly accepting this, before he turns and leaves the room without another word.

Hinata watches him go, his knees feeling decidedly like jelly.

* * *

Hinata switches off his van’s ignition and hops out, humming the tune to the last song that had been playing over the radio as he strolls up to Kageyama’s front door and raps his knuckles against the wood.

He likes the last day almost as much as the first day. This is the day he not only gets paid, but also completes another job well done, and gets to leave with satisfaction knowing there’ll be another glittering review on their website. This is victory day.

The door cracks open, and Hinata catches a sliver of his client’s face in the gap before the door swings open wider, to reveal Kageyama blinking at him blearily. He looks like he only just rolled out of bed, his normally sleek hair rumpled and messy, not to mention the adorable pinstriped pyjamas.

Hinata blinks back, highly amused. “Good morning!” he chirps.

Kageyama peers at him. “Why didn’t you use the key I gave you?” he asks, voice mumbly with drowsiness, before he yawns mightily and starting pawing at the sleep in his eyes.

Hinata’s knees start to feel decidedly shaky. This isn’t fair. The guy can’t be tall, dark and handsome and also cute as a kitten when he just wakes up – how is Hinata supposed to cope (professionally) with all of this?

“I didn’t want to wake you up by just strolling into your house!” he finally says in response to the question. “Looks like I was right to be worried. You know it’s 9am right?”

Kageyama yawns again, seemingly too sleepy to snap back at the teasing. He steps aside to let Hinata through, waving vaguely at the direction of the living room. “Whatever,” he grumbles, turning on the spot and trudging towards the stairs. “I’m having a shower.”

“Don’t fall asleep standing up and drown,” Hinata replies, but he keeps his voice low. Dummyama isn’t the sort of guy to get his jokes even when he’s fully awake, yet alone half asleep. A tragedy really. Hinata works hard on his comedy.

Resuming his humming of the song stuck in his head, Hinata trots to the living room to get stuck in. He wants to get the living room done as soon as possible so he can move on to the other jobs he has lined up for today.

He’s just finished slathering one wall with its final coat of paint when Kageyama makes his reappearance.

Hinata isn’t facing him when he comes into the room, though he does hear his heavy, measured footsteps.

Finishing his final sweep of his roller across the wall, he turns to face his client.

The first thing he notices is the tea mug in Kageyama’s hands, and his heart flutters pleasantly. Another cup of delicious tea? Kageyama shouldn’t have.

The next thing he notices is that Kageyama is, essentially, naked.

Hinata drops his paint roller. It lands in a paint tin with a muffled _sploosh._

Aside from the white, generous towel slung around his hips, Kageyama doesn’t seem to be wearing anything at all. And this would be fine, just absolutely peachy, Hinata’s seen clients wander around in a towel before while decorating, except for one teeny tiny, miniscule little detail.

Kageyama is absolutely smoking hot.

For a man who seems to spend all day tapping away on a laptop and making delicious cups of tea he is unfairly fit. He’s wrapped from head to toe in sturdy muscle, complete with smooth skin and neat hair. Still damp from his shower, he glistens in the morning sunlight streaming in from the windows, and Hinata watches, slightly distressed, as a droplet of water slips from the underside of his jaw, down his throat, and across a muscled chest before it bumps along his abdominal muscles and disappears somewhere around his navel.

Hinata thinks his heart has stopped. He’s dead. Or maybe in some sort of elaborate fever dream. Or in a coma. Is it possible to be all three?

Alarm bells clang noisily in his head as the silence stretches on. He’s vaguely aware he’s being horrendously rude – just standing here and ogling his client like the tasty snack he objectively is – but it matters not. He’s stuck this way, he might as well accept his fate.

Kageyama raises the mug of tea slightly, drawing attention to it, and Hinata is temporarily distracted by the muscles in his forearms bunching before reality takes a sledgehammer to his brain.

“Tea!” he squeaks, high pitched and utterly ridiculous. He steps forward and takes the mug, and is gobsmacked that he doesn’t immediately drop it with how clumsy his fingers feel.

“Thanks,” he croaks out, still sounding like someone has trapped his voice box in a vice.

Kageyama’s eyebrows twitch before he cocks his head, suddenly looking like an overly bemused puppy. The stark difference between the naïve face and the devastating body hits Hinata right in the chest and he resists the urge to groan.

Turning his horrible, lewd gaze from his poor innocent client, he gulps down a swig of tea, uncaring how the scalding hot liquid burns on its way down. He deserves blisters on his tongue for his unabashed unprofessionalism.

“Thanks,” he says again, somehow managing to sound somewhat normal and not like a guy who’s experiencing a terrifying amount of blood rushing to his groin.

Kageyama eyes him for a moment longer, before he nods his head, and walks from the room without another word.

Hinata watches him go, and how more droplets stream from his hairline down his unfairly sculpted back, and downs another swig of tea to burn the images from his brain.

Thankfully, the next time Kageyama deems it necessary to enter the living room he’s clothed – in the same sort of vaguely loose house wear that he had been wearing yesterday. Hinata gives himself a brief moment to mourn the loss of Kageyama’s figure on display, before he mentally smacks himself and draws his attention to the thing that Kageyama’s offering him.

It’s… another cup of tea.

Bemused, Hinata takes it, murmurs out his thanks and watches, with steadily increasing confusion, as Kageyama once again stiltedly nods, and leaves the room. True, painting is thirsty work and he has just finished another wall, but _more_ tea?

And it doesn’t stop there. Hinata finds he’s no sooner finished one part of the job and Kageyama arrives, like clockwork, ready and waiting with a fresh cup of tea. It’s sort of sweet, if kind of odd. Hinata is starting to wonder at point he can say no, because his bladder is really starting to protest at this point.

“Do you… normally drink this much tea?” Hinata asks when Kageyama brings him his third cup of the morning. He’d been wondering if Kageyama was just oddly insistent that guests drink a cup of tea on the hour every hour, but he keeps seeing Kageyama with a cup of his own, so he must be partaking.

“Yes,” Kageyama says simply. “It’s relaxing.”

Hinata boggles at him. He drinks this much tea every day? And then, before his brain can catch up with his mouth, he finds himself blurting, “Wow, you must pee a lot.”

Kageyama blinks. Hinata smacks his hand against his face.

“No more than usual. It’s important to maintain adequate hydration,” Kageyama says, and he sounds awful like he’s reeling off this line from memory. Like he’s been asked this before and he’s found something on the internet to back up his point.

Hinata really should just let the conversation drop here. Just accept his cup of tea and impending bladder rupture with grace, but unfortunately he’s always been an incurable blabbermouth.

“And do you always wander around the house in a towel?” he asks, because apparently he just can’t stop embarrassing himself.

(But he’s curious! Most clients are seen in a towel hurrying along a corridor, not swanning around the place offering tea to their poor unsuspecting handymen.)

“No,” Kageyama replies, and there’s just the slightest twitch to the corner of his mouth, and sort of sheen to his eye. He almost looks amused. “But I hadn’t offered you tea yet. I’m not rude.”

Hinata kind of wants to point out that Kageyama is kind of rude, in a bunch of different, inconsequential ways, but he miraculously manages to refrain.

“Well, I question your logic,” he says diplomatically – because who forgoes clothes just to make sure the handyman gets tea at 10am on the dot? “But I won’t fault it.”

The tea is delicious, after all.

* * *

Two hours and two more cups of tea later (right on the hour - Kageyama is terrifyingly punctual) Hinata gazes around the living room, pleased.

He should’ve taken a photo of the puce monstrosity that it had been before – it would’ve made for a good comparison photo for the website. Instead of being dark and dingy and dated, the room is now bright and airy and a very calming shade of buttermilk. Elevating rooms in this way really does send a giddy thrill down his spine.

Pleased with progress and right on schedule, Hinata goes in search of his now (very disappointingly) clothed client.

He finds him in his office – to be expected as this seems to be where he haunts when he’s not making cups of tea – tapping away and seemingly oblivious to his presence.

Hinata clears his throat politely, not wanting to make him jump, as funny as that would be.

Kageyama swivels in his chair, eyebrow raised.

“Hey, I finished the living room, so I don’t know if you want to take a look before I get cracking on that jobs list you had… hey, is that volleyball?”

Hinata switches subject as soon as he spots various photos of volleyball players littered across Kageyama’s laptop screen. He _loves_ volleyball!

Kageyama blinks at him, taking a quick glance at his screen before slowly bobbing his head in confirmation. “You… like volleyball?” he asks, sounding almost hopeful.

Hinata nearly vibrates out of his skin. “It’s my favourite! Do you play?”

“Sometimes,” Kageyama replies after a moment, somewhat ruefully. “Not as much as I want, but… I’m a sports journalist, so I get to write about it at least.”

“ _Ohhh!”_ Hinata coos, genuinely enthralled. That sounds like a much cooler job than what he does for a living (it’s mostly just a stop-gap until he works something out… not that he’s told Natsu.)

He really does want to pepper Kageyama with more questions, but unfortunately he needs to get on or he’s getting to get caught up in volleyball and he’ll never finish on time.

And so, reluctantly, he prompts Kageyama for the list of jobs he needed doing.

A flicker of something resembling disappointment flashes over Kageyama’s face. Hinata cocks his head, intrigued, but the moment is gone so quickly he wonders if he imagined it.

After a brief rummage around the drawers of his desk, Kageyama hands him a piece of paper – a scrap from a notebook, it looks like, with a list scrawled upon it in truly dreadful handwriting. Hinata would call him on it, but unfortunately his own is just as illegible and people in houses shouldn’t throw stones… or something.

He scans the list, squinting at a few words that are particularly hard to read. Looks like the usual things – oil the hinges, fix a few cupboard doors, change the bulb in a particularly weird lighting fixture. All fairly easy. He offers Kageyama another sunny grin, reminds him to check out the living room now it’s finished, and spins on his heel to get started on his list.

He’s just re-attaching what was a loose cupboard door with a shiny new hinge when, suddenly: “Can you paint some more?”

“ _Oww!_ ” Hinata jolts violently – not expecting Kageyama’s voice to appear out of thin air right behind him. When had he even come in? Jumping hard, his head cracks against the bottom of the cupboard door, smashing off his shiny new hinge entirely and causing the whole door to simply crash to the floor.

Hinata rubs at the top his skull viciously, muttering furiously under his breath. He whirls his gaze up at Kageyama, glaring.

Kageyama stares back at him blandly. “I’m not paying extra for that.”

Hinata’s glare intensifies. “ _You_ made me jump!”

Kageyama squints back. “ _You_ shouldn’t be so jumpy.”

Hinata nearly hits him in the shin with his screwdriver. “What did you mean anyway?” he grumbles, catching himself at the last second. Stabbing one’s clients is generally not considered to be very good customer service. “’Paint some more?’ Do you not like the living room?”

It does happen on occasion: a client not liking a colour once it’s dried and on the walls. He _really_ hopes Kageyama isn’t set on that eye searing yellow.

“The living room is nice,” Kageyama says, unexpectedly. Hinata preens, even if the compliment is a little bland. “Can you do the office and the bedroom too?”

Hinata blinks, pleasantly surprised. More work means more money after all. “Sure. It’ll take me an extra day though, that okay?”

Kageyama nods, clearly not bothered. “Do you have that paint thing?”

“Paint… thing? Oh, the colour chart?”

Another nod.

“Err… yeah sure, hang on…” Hinata says slowly, some dread starting to creep in. If Kageyama’s actively asking for colours, then he must want something other than beige. Normally he encourages colour where possible but considering Kageyama’s last judgement…

He’s right to be concerned.

“This one for the bedroom…” Kageyama says, pointing at a shade of electric blue, “and this one for the office,” he decides, pointing at a shade of green that’s borderline neon.

Hinata’s brow twitches. Apparently Kageyama is just addicted to the idea of burning his eyes out now.

“Sure!” he agrees, mentally making a note to order paint in several shades more muted than both of those. “I’ll buy the paint tomorrow morning before I arrive.”

Kageyama hums his agreement before moving to the kettle to presumably make more tea. Hinata watches him, flicks his gaze back to the chart, shudders at the thought of the colours Kageyama had picked, before finally turning his attention to the cupboard door he’d smashed off with his own skull.

His head throbs. Well, might as well get back to fixing it.

At this rate, Kageyama owes him a six star review.

* * *

The next day, the sheets are down once again and the walls are inspected for any dents or imperfections.

Hinata had decided to work on the bedroom first, Kageyama does need to sleep tonight after all, and he’ll look a lot more impressive if he doesn’t leave his client to sleep on the sofa or surrounded by protective sheets.

Popping open the can of white undercoat paint, Hinata gets to work, rapidly covering the walls. As he moves around the room, his eyes keep trailing back over to the bed in the middle of the room.

It’s quite a large bed. Which is sensible, because Kageyama is quite a large man, but it’s just so _distracting._

Now he’s already thought about getting the room ready so Kageyama can sleep in his own room tonight, all Hinata can think about is Kageyama sleeping. In that huge bed. All alone.

Does he sprawl? Stretch those long limbs out as far as they will go? Sleep on his side? His front? Does he curl up? Does he snore?

Hinata thunks his forehead against freshly painted wall with a groan, uncaring that there’s paint smearing across his skin. This is ridiculous. Stop thinking about how Kageyama sleeps. He probably sleeps boringly – on his back and not moving at all.

Forcing his mind to settle on this image, Hinata angrily covers over the smudge in the paint he made with his own head and stomps over to the paint tin of Kageyama’s chosen bedroom colour. As before, he’d vetoed his client’s choice of blinding, electric blue, and selected on a soft duck egg. Much calmer, and much less likely to cause eye damage at first light.

Hinata crouches down, ready to pop the lid off the paint, when his eyes catch the furniture that’s directly opposite him. Kageyama’s wardrobe.

Once again, unwanted images start popping into his mind as he aggressively stabs his tool into the gap between the lid and the can.

Because now he’s faced with a big wooden box of clothes he can’t stop thinking about what Kageyama might wear to bed. He saw him in pyjamas only yesterday – but is that common? Does he always wear loose, comfy sleepwear? What if it’s hot? Does he shuck his shirt, his pyjama bottoms? Sleep in just his underwear? What if he doesn’t bother with underwear at all when it’s a heatwave? What if he just sleeps naked-

Hinata’s grip on his tool slips with how suddenly his palms get sweaty and he jolts forwards, resting too much of his weight on it and overbalancing. The can of paint tilts, just as the lid pops free, and then falls over entirely, paint spilling out onto the floor.

Hinata curses roughly, scrabbling to right the tin before he can make too much of a mess, but it’s already a disaster. At least half of the paint has been spilt, and he mutters at himself furiously, an embarrassing burn searing across his cheeks.

Great. Just great. His sinful, stupid, utterly _unprofessional_ thoughts about his client’s bare bum in bed have resulted in a spillage of epic proportions. He’ll have to buy another tin, there’s no way the remainder will cover the room sufficiently. He’ll need another day. This is unacceptable. He hasn’t fucked up this badly since the Grand Paint Spillage of 2018 – an event that Natsu forbids them to even think about anymore.

With a huff, he stands up properly and rakes paint smeared fingers through his hair, no doubt turning a few of the strands white in the process. At least the paint spilled onto the sheets he’d lain on the floor – a saving grace he’d learned the hard way. Cover _everything_ in a sheet, not just the furniture, and most accidents can be saved.

Saved from damage, but not delays.

“Is there a problem?”

Hinata shrieks and jumps a full foot in the air, whirling around and nearly kicking over the paint can all over again, heart pounding.

Kageyama blinks back at him impassively from the doorway. He is, for once, not accompanied by a cup of tea. “You were yelling a lot,” he explains.

“… Oh,” Hinata blinks, willing his heart to calm the hell down. He must’ve shouted more than he realised when he tipped the paint can over. He always did have a problem with his volume knob.

Abruptly, he wonders if Kageyama has seen the paint spill yet, and considers moving to cover it with his body. Aiming for stealthy, he shuffles across the sheet on the floor, hoping that he’s somewhat blocking the evidence from view.

Still, he has to face some of the music, and he hopes his face doesn’t look too guilty as he starts to explain. “So I, uh… need to get more paint. Little technical difficulty. Nothing I can’t fix-“

“It’s all over the floor,” Kageyama points out blandly.

Hinata swears internally. He forgot that Kageyama is a full head taller than him. “Well… yeah okay half of it is over the floor,” he concedes, and then chases off the guilt with false cheer. “But! I can easily get some more. It might take another day to get it and still paint both rooms but I _can_ get it and I won’t charge you for the inconvenience as it’s completely my fault and-“

“Okay,” Kageyama shrugs, once again cutting in and ending Hinata’s babble instantly.

Hinata falls into silence, mildly stunned by this simple acceptance. “Okay?” he repeats, suddenly suspicious. Most people wouldn’t be this easy going.

Kageyama nods. “Yeah. It’s fine,” he confirms.

Hinata peers into his face. He doesn’t appear to be lying through his teeth. He doesn’t even seem to be mildly annoyed, aside from the surface level of grumpiness that just generally envelopes him. Perhaps his five star review streak will live to see another day.

“Tea?” Kageyama says finally, breaking the sudden silence, before turning on his heel and leaving the room without another word.

Hinata blinks into the sudden space, and has just enough brain power to blurt out a “yes!” before realising Kageyama had left without waiting for a response.

Hinata scratches his head, spreading more paint through his hair, and decides not to dwell on it too much.

Kageyama isn’t mad, and he gets to spend another day with him, after all.

* * *

The next day, Hinata makes good on his promise to make up for the extra time.

He’d temporarily abandoned the bedroom yesterday – leaving the undercoat to dry and spending the time he should’ve used to finish the final coats of paint to gather his sheets back up instead. They’d need laying again, but Hinata hated the thought of putting Kageyama out of his bed for the night, so he’ll suffer through it. It’s his fault after all.

He’d spent the rest of the day painting the office a cheerful, pastel green ( _not_ the colour of toxic waste that Kageyama had initially chosen) while Kageyama continued to bring him a cup of tea on the hour, every hour.

It was… nice. And Hinata finds himself feeling a little sad as he rolls out his sheets across the bedroom floor for the second time, the new can of paint sitting on the chest of drawers where he cannot spill it.

The thing is, he doesn’t normally get attached to clients. He’s too busy doing his job – speedily (but nicely!) painting walls and fixing doors and oiling hinges and all manner of miscellaneous things, and clients are either at work or just staying out of his way entirely. They don’t hang around to chat, or offer him tea by the pot load, or indulge him when he breaks out of his professional persona for a moment.

And Kageyama is definitely kind of weird. He’s a little too intense in ensuring Hinata’s hydrated and he’s far too grumpy for a young guy in his twenties has any right to be and he really should care more about what his house is going to look like once Hinata is finished.

But he’s also oddly endearing, once you look past his tendency to frown. He has no sense of humour, but nor does he get offended. He doesn’t care when Hinata is being weird, because he himself is weird. His endless offers of tea are actually kind of sweet. And, not to mention, he is, one hundred percent, with a shadow of a doubt, the hottest thing Hinata has seen all year.

Hinata finishes his first coat of paint on the bedroom walls and taps his cheek, smearing blue paint across it.

Technically, once he’s finished this room, his contract with Kageyama is done. He won’t see him again.

Unless of course, he bites the bullet and asks him out on a date.

Which Hinata can do. He’s good at asking people out on dates! He’s friendly and personable and he’s never struggled to charm before. Granted, most people aren’t quite as… Kageyama-like as Kageyama, but it’s not like it’s impossible, right? He’s fairly sure Kageyama doesn’t have a partner (he’s had plenty of time to snoop around to confirm this.)

Hinata smacks his fist into his palm, decision made.

But of course, first thing’s first: seeing if Kageyama is actually interested.

Hinata’s track record for dates may be exceptional, but nothing is guaranteed. What if Kageyama doesn’t like guys? What if Kageyama doesn’t like _anyone?_ Or worse, what if Kageyama doesn’t actually like Hinata at all?

A little frown appears on Hinata’s brow and he folds his arms, suddenly troubled.

What if Kageyama is like this with everyone? Does he just offer gallons of tea to all the handymen that come round his house? Does he parade around shirtless and drive them mad with his abs too? What if Hinata isn’t _special?_

Hinata frowns harder. He has to get to the bottom of this. He can’t ask Kageyama out without first ascertaining the facts. The most important of which being: is Kageyama hot for him?

Whipping his head around, Hinata scans the room for inspiration. Kageyama isn’t the sort of guy that he can just ask these things out loud, he’ll need to use action. He’s pretty sure Kageyama is a man better suited to body language than actual language.

His eyes fall on the open paint tin. Between the new one he had to purchase this morning and the one left over from yesterday he has more than enough. A plan quickly forms in his head. A brilliant plan. One inspired by some… _amateur movies_ perhaps, but if it works, it works right?

Grabbing a paint brush, Hinata dips it into the tin of paint and then liberally daubs his shirt with paint. Just enough that it is essentially ruined. By the time it dries, it’ll be so crusted with paint it won’t even be a shirt anymore, Hinata will just be a walking easel caked in blue paint.

Satisfied, if a little uncomfortable, Hinata sets his brush down, double checks that his first coat of paint (on the walls, not his shirt) is drying nicely and then trots from the room and down the stairs. He has time to kill before he can start on the second coat anyway, so he might as well take advantage of the moment while it’s here.

He finds Kageyama tapping away on his laptop in the living room rather than his freshly painted office (Hinata tries not to be offended – maybe Kageyama just wanted to be comfy.)

Hinata dawdles in the doorway for a moment, bobbing around on his toes with sudden nerves, wondering how to play this. Thankfully, Kageyama seems to be too absorbed in his laptop to notice him hovering in the doorway, so he’s free to dither and scheme in relative secret.

Finally, Hinata decides to just throw caution to the wind.

Leaning against the doorframe, Hinata settles himself against the wood, hoping that he looks effortlessly draped along it and not like he’s about to topple over. He cocks a hip, ignores the twinge it gives him in response, artfully settles his hands into sexy poses and then schools his expression to look its most alluring.

He’s never been the greatest actor, but Kageyama seems a little dense. So he needs to turn it up a notch.

Steeling his nerves, Hinata clears his throat.

Kageyama grunts in response, eyes never leaving his laptop screen.

Hinata shifts a little bit. Decides to uncock his hip before it pops out of its socket. “Hey, so I might need a new shirt…” he says, aiming for casual.

Kageyama’s fingers briefly stop typing, and Hinata’s heart lifts in hope before he realises he’s just paused to read something on the screen.

“Because I’ve got paint all down this one,” Hinata continues, speaking a little louder now in the vain hope Kageyama might actually turn his fucking head this time.

Kageyama grunts again.

“So… can I borrow one?” Hinata asks, throwing in a wink for good measure. It may aimed at the back of Kageyama’s head, but he heard once if you smile it reflects in your voice, so presumably the same thing also applies to flirtatious winking.

“Sure,” Kageyama says without even pausing what he’s doing or to even think about the question.

Hinata gawps.

Only the sound of Kageyama’s typing fills the air.

Hinata taps his fingers against the doorframe, wondering if there’ll be a follow-up to that or if Kageyama really is just that casual about sharing his clothing.

There’s no further response.

Puffing out a little frustrated sigh, Hinata levers his way off of the doorway, stretches out in the crick in his back and stalks off.

Time for plan b.

Hinata pulls his paint sodden shirt off when he reaches the bedroom again, throwing it by the spare sheets. This isn’t a very elegant plan, but it _does_ get straight to the point. Instead of switching his shirt for Kageyama’s in front of Kageyama – thereby showing off his torso – he’ll simply parade about shirtless. Simple.

If Kageyama wander around in just a towel, Hinata can paint without a shirt on. Fair’s fair.

Besides, he goes to the gym! He’s a kinda good looking guy with a decent enough body. And Hinata knows a roving eye when he spots one – it’s a fool proof plan. And if Kageyama questions his sudden semi-nakedness he’ll just say all of his shirts were too big and he didn’t want to ruin them.

Readying his roller for the final coat of paint to go up on the walls, Hinata sets to work, waiting for clock to tick over to the next hour.

Right on cue, Kageyama appears as the hour hand minute hand ticks into place, ready and waiting with the expected cup of tea.

Hinata’s heart thumps excitedly, while his bladder throbs at the thought of yet more tea.

Kageyama opens his mouth to say something when he pauses. Hinata watches him carefully over his shoulder, careful to keep his face in a neutral, polite smile. All he needs to see is those blue eyes going for a little journey, and he’ll be set.

But instead, Kageyama just cocks his head, his frown caught between confusion and his usual surface level of mild annoyance. “I thought you wanted to borrow a shirt?”

“Oh, well…” Hinata says slowly, aiming for coy and hoping he’s not grinning too broadly. He turns in a slow circle so that he’s facing Kageyama instead, angling his hips and shoulders in a way that makes his torso curve sensually. “They were all kind of big, and I didn’t want to get paint over the sleeves or something, you know? It’s hard to wash out.”

Kageyama stares at him. Hinata waits eagerly.

Then his client just… nods. “Makes sense, you do like to make a mess,” he says sensibly, and steps further into the room until he’s right in front of Hinata, holding out his offered cup of tea.

Hinata mightily resists the urge to pout, before a lightbulb goes off in his brain.

Slowly, he bends down to place his roller safely in the paint tray by his feet, before standing straight again, making sure all of his movements are slow and deliberate. He does yoga – he knows he’s smooth and bendy. Keeping his eyes locked on Kageyama’s the whole time, he straightens, planting his hands on his hips and offering him a sunny smile, before taking the offered mug with one hand, taking a long, slow sip, maintaining that searing eye contact.

Kageyama stares back, seemingly transfixed. Hinata lets his smile widen around the rim of the mug. _Nearly…_

Then Kageyama blinks once, twice, before mumbling out a “enjoy your tea,” and then simply turns on his heel and leaves the room.

Hinata stares at the empty spot which his client had occupied only a few seconds ago.

Suddenly overcome with his frustration, he stamps his foot, the sound muffled by the sheets beneath his feet. That’s it? No swallow, no awkward words, no roving eyes? He’s not _that_ boring! He has muscles and stuff! Hinata looks down at himself, and considers. Maybe being shirtless is just something Kageyama is just naturally comfortable with, considering how he thinks nothing of appearing before someone basically naked when he’s barely known them for twenty-four hours.

Shoving down the urge to throw his tea mug against the wall in frustration, Hinata plonks it down on the nearest bit of furniture and grabs his roller, resolving to scheme a little more while he finishes this coat of paint.

He will not fail so readily.

By the time he finishes the last roll of paint, he is still at a loss.

No matter what line he comes up with, he can’t see any of them working, and any that _might_ work are just too blunt! What if Kageyama just says no? Hinata will not only have to kiss his review streak goodbye but also he’ll be cripplingly embarrassed for weeks.

He finds himself lost in his head as he starts clearing up on autopilot – rolling up the sheets and tidying away his painting materials. He spots Kageyama a few times in the trips between the house and his van as he stores everything away, and each time he hopes for a burst of inspiration, but nothing comes to him.

Slamming the back door to his van shut, Hinata irritably taps his fingers against the metal. He’s got to play for time. He will not end this week on a bad note by humiliating himself.

Determination renewed, he re-enters the house to find Kageyama in his bedroom, looking at his newly painted walls with a mild, appraising sort of expression.

“So!” Hinata says – a little too loudly apparently, judging by how Kageyama jumps – and he claps his hands together. “I’m all done!”

“So you are,” Kageyama agrees, somewhat quietly.

They eye each other, quickly falling into silence. Hinata shuffles from foot to foot, scrabbling about for an idea – anything he can offer before Kageyama starts asking him how much he owes and wraps up the job.

“What about the bathroom?” Hinata suggests suddenly, grabbing for the first room he hasn’t done anything to yet. “Would you like that painted?”

Kageyama blinks. He seems to be at a loss. “There aren’t any walls to paint,” he says, using the _‘are you stupid?’_ voice again. “The walls are covered in tiles.”

Hinata opens his mouth to reply, and then shuts it again, feeling ridiculous. Of course the bathroom is covered in tiles. He should know this considering the amount of time he’s spent in there after consuming his bodyweight in tea every day.

Another silence falls between them. Hinata wants to tear at his hair in frustration. What else can he do? Did any of the doors squeak? Should be oil all the hinges? Paint all the doors? Paint all the doors and ceilings?

“The shower isn’t working properly,” Kageyama offers suddenly, shattering the silence.

“Huh?” Hinata mumbles, unable to form anything more intelligent after having his train of thought interrupted so suddenly.

“The shower doesn’t work,” Kageyama repeats, some of usual frown returning. “The water doesn’t come out properly sometimes. Could you fix that?”

“Uhhh…” Hinata frowns as well. He is absolutely _not_ a plumber and has no idea how showers work but he does have ‘handyman’ on his resume so he’s sure he can give it a shot! It can’t be that hard right? It’s just some pipes. It’s probably just a blockage. Easy.

“Sure!” he says loudly, perhaps a little too enthusiastically. He has just been given a lifeline after all. “Showers aren’t my speciality but I can definitely take a look at it!”

Kageyama’s frown eases completely, and he goes back to that tiny, sort-of smile.

Hinata’s stomach flips. He wants to see him smile properly so badly.

“Thanks,” Kageyama intones, brushing past as he heads out of the room. “Tea?”

“Sure,” Hinata says weakly, keeping his back deliberately turned so that Kageyama can’t see his giddy grin and triumphant fist pump.

This is perfect. He’s got more time to ascertain Kageyama’s interest. And once he’s sure there’s an opening, he’ll ask him out. Simple. Brilliant. He’s going to get a glowing review and a hot date all at once, he’s sure of it.

Spirits high, Hinata bounces from the room in search of his phone, and maybe a shirt, ready to look up how showers actually work.

* * *

Turns out, showers are complicated.

Hinata stares down a crumpled manual – borrowed in a hurry from a friend – with wide, blood-shot eyes.

It’s been a disaster. A nightmare.

It’s been two days since he agreed to fix Kageyama’s shower. He’d spent the first afternoon fiddling with it, seeing what Kageyama meant about the start-stop water spray. Then he’d Googled it, tried all the fixes that the internet offered him that he could feasibly try, but to no avail.

The next day, he visited the hardware store. Bought a new shower head, replaced it. No joy. Went back to the hardware store. Bought new taps, replaced those. No joy.

Then this morning he badgered his friend for a manual – and now here is. Sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bathroom, staring holes into the pages, filled with diagrams he does not understand, trying to cram the anatomy of a shower into his brain in space of an hour so he can fix the fucking thing.

Hinata groans loudly, tipping his head back and staring pitifully up at the ceiling. He gropes around by his knee blindly until his fingers close around a mug, and he takes a long, morose sip from it.

Why did he agree to this? Why is he still drinking tea? Why is Kageyama so fucking hot?

Tea mug drained, Hinata sets it down on the ground again with a decisive thunk. Dropping the manual to the floor next it, he clambers to his feet and glares daggers at the shower. Right. One final tussle with his new nemesis, and then he’s going to call a real plumber and beg them for help.

Rooting around in his toolbox, he unearths his hammer. It’s not very big – made for bashing nails into walls for hanging up picture frames – but it should do the job. The piping from the shower head goes into the tiles lining the cubicle and then presumably behind the wall so if Hinata wants to look at the piping, he’s going to need to smash the tiles. It’s fool proof.

Climbing back into the shower cubicle, Hinata raises his hammer, closes one eye and squints the other. Pokes out his tongue a bit. Aims for the tile where the shower piping disappears and then swings.

The hammer hits true. The tile cracks.

Hinata beams, and then a jet of water sprays into his face.

Spluttering, Hinata drops his hammer, narrowly missing his foot, and raises his hands, shielding himself from the sudden onslaught.

“Will you just… _stop!”_ he yells furiously and smashes his hands against the hole, temporarily blocking the spray. He stands there, leaning his weight against the wall, panting as water drips from his sodden fringe.

He had better get a date after this.

Apparently, yelling at a client’s shower tends to summon them, and it’s not long before Kageyama appears in the doorway, looking a little alarmed.

Hinata glowers up at him from where he sits in the middle of the shower cubicle, sopping wet, and with the shower head still spitting water out intermittently. In a fit of desperation, he’d managed to grab a tube of filler from his toolbox and squirt some into the hole he’d made the tile, miraculously cutting off the water spout. Tentatively, he’d turned the shower on, just to make sure he hadn’t completely broken it.

Luckily, water still flows from the shower head, albeit in its usual, stop-start pattern. Hinata had glared at it viciously before flopping onto his butt, suddenly drained.

And now here is: sitting and staring up at his client, all professionalism having gone out of the window.

Kageyama stares back at him, looking thoroughly bewildered.

Hinata puffs out a morose sigh. He really is far too hot, even when he’s just standing there looking really confused in loose house clothes. It’s not fair.

 _And you know what_ , he thinks to himself, _fuck it._

“Hey, Kageyama?”

“Yes?” Kageyama replies slowly, watching Hinata a little warily.

“Are you single?” Hinata asks, deciding to take all tack and just punt it into the sun. He just wants to know, then he can collect whatever remains of his shattered dignity and drive off into the sunset.

Kageyama looks even more baffled, if that’s possible. “… Yes?” he says again.

Hinata perks up a bit. Well, this is a promising start at least.

“Neat,” Hinata says, “do you want to get a drink later? We can even get tea.”

(Hinata is a little sick of tea, to be honest, but it is Kageyama’s favourite drink.)

Kageyama just continues to stare at him wordlessly. He looks an awful lot like a fish out of water, floundering and silent. Hinata has a half delirious thought to invite him into the shower cubicle with him, see if the malfunctioning shower spray will revive him any.

He waits for another long, torturous minute for a response, but it seems as though Kageyama’s brain has taken leave of his body.

Still, he doesn’t look angry, or disgusted, or like he’s going to throw Hinata out of his house, so Hinata sighs and smacks his hands to his knees with a loud squelch. He stands, privately impressed with how he doesn’t slip over, and slowly climbs out of the shower. He would apologise for all of the water he’s dripping all over the floor but at this point the room is already pretty drenched.

He steps up to Kageyama, tilts his chin until he can look him in the eye, and raises an eyebrow, waiting for a reply.

All he gets is wide blue eyes and frantic blinking.

Sighing, Hinata closes his own eyes, bids farewell to his perfect review streak, levers himself up onto his toes and claps his hands around Kageyama’s cheeks.

Hinata gives Kageyama a second to pull away, checking that this is okay, before he rocks up and kisses him soundly.

Kageyama is a man of action, after all.

Blowing out a little puff of air through his nose, Hinata pulls back slowly, rocking down onto the souls of feet. Kageyama seems to have malfunctioned, staring down at him with saucer eyes, huge and luminous. Hinata lowers his hands from Kageyama’s cheeks slowly, dragging them down until they rest on his chest, and he pats his shirt idly.

Well. This is awkward.

He’s just clearing his throat, suddenly hyper aware that he is still wet from the shower explosion and probably looks a little insane, but then Kageyama is suddenly moving.

It happens in a blur: one moment Kageyama is standing in front of him, gaping like a fish, then next he’s bending down, grabbing Hinata’s hammer from the floor and suddenly wielding it.

Hinata has a brief, horrifying moment of terror. Great. He’s about to be bludgeoned in the bathroom he’s just ruined.

But then Kageyama turns, swings once, and smashes a tap off of the nearby sink.

Hinata stares.

Kageyama stares as well, apparently just as baffled by his own madman actions.

 _“What the fuck?”_ Hinata whispers under his breath, wondering manically whether he’s actually on some kind of hidden camera show.

Kageyama swallows roughly, dropping the hammer. He runs a hand through his hair. “Well,” he says – or rather croaks – before he clears his throat awkwardly. “Now you’ll have to stay longer. To uhh…” he waves vaguely at the hole where the tap had been before he smashed it off. “To fix the sink.”

Hinata blinks.

And then, suddenly, the lightbulb goes off over his head.

Being asked to paint the bedroom and office when they didn’t really need doing. Not getting chastened for spilling the paint and needing another day. Being asked to fix the shower when it’s definitely not one of his usual jobs.

Kageyama _does_ like him.

Abruptly, Hinata snorts, suddenly caught up in the ridiculousness of it all. He looks around the room, taking in the damage, and then starts to giggle. Kageyama turns to look at him, eyebrow raised, and the giggles bloom into full laughter. This is _so_ stupid.

“Oh my god,” Hinata wheezes, flapping a hand as his sides continued to shake with the force of his laughter. “We’ve been _really_ dumb.”

Kageyama’s face crumples into his usual grumpy frown, and Hinata snickers a little more, before he heaves in deep breaths in a bid to calm himself.

“ _Hoo_ … okay, I’m good,” he breathes, meeting Kageyama’s unimpressed stare without fear. “Look, I think you’re hot as hell,” he says, and relishes in the sudden flare of pink that burns across Kageyama’s unfairly sculpted cheekbones. “You don’t have to keep coming up with any more jobs because I would like to take you on a date, you ginormous, tea obsessed idiot.”

Kageyama’s frown melts away. “… Oh,” he mumbles, looking vaguely stunned for a moment, before that tiny, half-smile appears on his face.

And then, without warning, it blooms, until it’s wide and happy and transforms Kageyama’s face – making him look young and devastatingly handsome in a whole different way.

Hinata almost faints at the sight of it, his heart simply unprepared for the vision.

“Neat,” Kageyama says, before shocking Hinata even further by swooping down and kissing him.

Hinata gives himself half a second to be stunned, before he groans in deep satisfaction and grabs for Kageyama, fisting his hands into his shirt and dragging him closer, uncaring if he gets him wet as well. In fact, the thought only serves to spur him on, and he shuffles up pressing their torsos together, feeling his heart thud at being so close to those pecs.

Kageyama makes a sound against him, deep in his throat, before those big hands are grabbing for him in turn, pulling and tugging. Hinata breaks apart from him briefly to gasp in air, feeling electricity sizzle down his spine, waiting for Kageyama to manoeuvre him into the position he wants him to be in when Kageyama takes him by surprise yet again.

With a brief bend of the knee, Kageyama secures his strong, deliciously muscled arms around Hinata’s ribcage before simply lifting.

Hinata muffles his yelp against Kageyama with another bruising kiss, eagerly following along with this new plan. He winds his arms across Kageyama’s shoulders and makes use of his best muscles – his thighs – by lifting his legs and coiling them around Kageyama’s hips, ensuring their bodies are pressed together in one, searing line.

Kageyama’s broad palms settle across his back and he lets out a pleased noise, clearly uncaring that he too is getting wet from the water still clinging to Hinata’s clothes and skin.

“By the way,” Hinata gasps as they part again, peppering Kageyama’s face with tiny, apologetic kisses, “I’m _so_ not a plumber so your shower and sink are absolutely ruined.”

“That’s okay,” Kageyama mumbles, his voice several octaves deeper. Hinata shivers in his arms. “I didn’t want the rest of my house painted and I lied about the shower because I didn’t want you to go so soon.”

Hinata smirks as Kageyama mouths his way along his jaw. “I know,” he says smugly, voice hitching when Kageyama catches his earlobe and sucks on it roughly in punishment.

A man of action indeed.

“Wait,” he gasps as Kageyama starts to nibble his way down his throat.

Kageyama’s pauses obediently, and Hinata can feel his nose against his skin when he swallows. “What do you mean you lied?”

The shower was definitely broken – well even more broken now – so what did Kageyama lie about?

“Oh,” Kageyama huffs, and resumes his discovery of Hinata’s neck. Hinata is distantly impressed his arms haven’t wavered yet in holding his weight. “There’s a plumber coming next week. So I didn’t need you to look at it.”

“Oh,” Hinata copies, before shrugging. Cool. At least Kageyama’s bathroom might still be salvaged. “Fair enough. I lied about being able to fix it because I was buying for time working out how to ask you out.”

Kageyama hums, sounding maddeningly amused, and Hinata wiggles angrily in his arms before Kageyama shuts him up with another bruising kiss.

“By the way,” Hinata asks later, when he’s wrapped up in some of Kageyama’s spare house clothes on his sofa, his own draped across a radiator to dry, “are you going to give me a good review?”

Kageyama eyes him from his spot next to him, and takes a slow, torturous sip from his tea mug. “A solid four stars,” he announces at last, just as Hinata starts to fidget impatiently.

 _“Four?”_ Hinata demands, outraged.

Kageyama’s eyes glitter at him dangerously over the rim of his mug. “Maybe your customer service needs some work,” he says simply.

Hinata gawps at him, vaguely aware he’s being goaded but falling for it anyway, and he pounces, giving Kageyama just enough time to move his tea out of the way before crowding in close.

“I’ll show _you_ five star service,” he mutters viciously, taking delight in the surprise in Kageyama’s eyes before securing a kiss.

He’s not about to lose his streak now.

**Author's Note:**

> come at yell at me on twitter! @Emlee_J


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